TodoBaku Stuff

How To Lose A Costume Contest And Still Win At Life

Summary:
Bakugou Katsuki was determined to win a costume competition with the most realistic werewolf costume he could feasibly put together.

Things do not go according to plan. Somehow they go much, much worse.

And then far, far better than he ever anticipated.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Bakugou knew he’d regret attending this stupid fucking Halloween party his group of so-called friends were throwing before he ever even agreed to go. Frankly, he didn’t know if he felt much like calling them friends after this, because he had been fucking coerced into coming in the first place, lured into a trap by the promise of a Halloween costume contest and the casually tossed-out suggestion that “he probably wouldn’t win anyway even if he did go,” courtesy of one Kaminari Denki. It was only later, upon reflection and long after he'd declared that he could win hands down easily and he'd prove it, that he realized he’d played directly into their hands and had in fact been goaded.

Fuckers.

And so here he was, at a lame-ass goddamn Halloween party, complete with carved pumpkins and hanging bats and stupid little spider cupcakes that Ochako and Tsuyu had apparently made, the smell of hot cider and synthetic confectionary hanging warm and pungent in the air as candlelight flickered eerily all around them. It was all very cliche and picture perfect, probably the ideal Halloween party according to anyone who wasn’t Bakugou. Which really wouldn’t have been so bad even for him, truth be told, if it weren’t for two very important things:

Bakugou had not won the costume contest.
Bakugou had lost the costume contest to none other than Torodoki fucking Shouto.
He’d worked so hard —too fucking hard, honestly, given that there wasn’t even a prize worth caring about— to win this stupid thing and prove a point, because even if he had been tricked into this he was still going to prove that he could win it, goddammit. So he’d set out to have the best and most realistic costume of anyone, tracking down an acquaintance in his hero office who worked on the desk side of things and who just happened to have a quirk that gifted whoever she touched with certain adaptations, as she liked to call them— ones which she could tailor upon request.

For the right price, of course.

So Bakugou had maybe shelled over a little more money than was strictly necessary to acquire the physical characteristics he felt would allow him to pull off a fairly realistic werewolf costume. And he’d pulled it off exceptionally well.

The only problem was, after all that money and effort, he still hadn’t won.

He’d lost. To fuckin Half ‘n Half. Who was dressed like a goddamn vampire.

The irony of their clash in costume choices was not lost on Bakugou.

“I fucking hate Halloween,” he mumbled to himself, where he was decidedly not sulking on the back porch of Jirou and Yaoyorozu’s apartment as he gazed up balefully at the nearly full moon, which hung low and heavy on the skyline.

How long did he have to stick around this stupid social disaster before he could bail without looking bad, he wondered. Five years ago, Bakugou probably would have refused to attend all-together. Three years ago, and Bakugou would have left whenever he damn well pleased. And now, somehow, he’d ended up in the position of actually kind of maybe giving a shit about how his actions actually affected the people he was currently refusing to acknowledge were his friends.

I’ll give it another hour, tops, he decided, finishing off his cup of hot cider and enjoying the feeling of warmth spreading out from his core as it kept the cold at bay, his ears twitching happily on top of his head.